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By Monica Sager
Live News Reporter
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Attorney General Merrick Garland addressed the spread of disinformation from the Russian government in a press conference on Wednesday, announcing a sweeping effort to fight back against the Kremlin's repeated efforts to influence the U.S. election.
As part of the announcement, the Justice Department charged two Russia-based employees of Russian state media network RT with conspiring to commit money laundering and violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
"That law, enacted nearly a century ago, was enacted to ensure the American people were informed when a foreign power engages with political activities or seeks to influence public discourse," Garland said. "The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power is attempting to exploit our country's free exchange of ideas in order to send around its own propaganda."
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Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, each face a maximum sentence of five years in prison for violating FARA, and an additional maximum sentence of 20 years for the conspiracy to commit money laundering. The pair are accused of spending millions of dollars to launder pro-Russian social media content through an unnamed company in Tennessee.
RT's editor in chief said the company had built "an entire empire of covert projects designed to shape public opinion in Western audiences."
"We allege that as part of that effort, RT and its employees, including the defendants, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government," Garland said.
The attorney general said RT worked with U.S.-based social media influencers to share content on "amplifying U.S. domestic divisions."
"The company never disclosed to the influencers or their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government," Garland said. "Instead, the defendants and the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor, but that private investor was a fictitious persona."
Garland said the charges are not the end to the investigation, which "remains active and ongoing."
The announcement suggests the White House intends to take a more deliberate approach in combating misinformation and fake news specifically spread by Moscow and its affiliates, eight years after Russia first emerged as a major player in U.S. election interference.
American spy agencies believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin is hoping Donald Trump wins in November, given Trump's skepticism over the U.S. role in financing Ukraine's war machine.
"This is no surprise," former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told CNN. "Going back to when Putin was KGB, his primary goal was to undermine the United States of America and weaken our democracy. They are constantly focused on that goal."
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Newsweek reached out to the Biden administration for comment but did not hear back immediately.
Panetta, who served as defense secretary under President Barack Obama and chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, said he is "glad the administration is bringing this to the attention" of the public.
"It's important that we develop a strong line of defense against these activities," Panetta said. "What we have to do on the defense is counter that disinformation campaign to make clear to the American people what the truth is and to make them aware of what the Russians are trying to do."
Panetta also referred back to Trump saying in 2018 that he trusted Russian intelligence more than the FBI.
"That says an awful lot about where he's coming from," Panetta said.
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The Justice Department forced RT America to register as a foreign agent in 2017 after intelligence officials concluded the outlet contributed to efforts to influence the 2016 election.
"They did the same thing with a very bold cyber-attack on our election system," Panetta said. "They did it in 2020 and they're now doing it in 2024."
Separately, Garland said the federal government is also seizing 32 internet domains that were used "to interfere and influence the outcome of our country's elections." The websites were meant to appear like they were major news sites, but were instead "filled with Russian propaganda that were created by the Kremlin."
Social media influencers, both real and fake, were used to drive people to these sites, according to the Justice Department.
"Both of the schemes that I just discussed make clear the ends to which the Russian government, including at its highest levels, is willing to go to undermine our democratic process," Garland said. "The enforcement actions I discuss also make clear that the Justice Department will aggressively counter such efforts. The same is true of the entire United States government."
Later on Wednesday, the U.S. State Department announced Rewards for Justice is now offering a reward of up to $10 million for information on RaHDit, also known as Russian Angry Hackers Did It (RaHDit). Members are associated with RT, propagating its disinformation, and with Russian intelligence services, according to the announcement. RaHDit is led by Russian Federal Security Service officer Aleksey Garashchenko.
Not Just Russia
Garland noted that Russia is "not the only power seeking to interfere in our elections."
"We have no tolerance for attempts by authoritarian regimes to exploit our democratic system of government," Garland said. "We will be relentlessly aggressive in countering and disrupting attempts from Russia and Iran as well as China or any other foreign malign actor to interfere in our elections and undermine our democracy."
Last month, the U.S. accused Iran of trying to hack the campaigns of both Trump and Kamala Harris.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, initially told Politico that the documents were obtained illegally "from foreign sources hostile to the United States." He later suggested that Iran was behind the attack, saying, "The Iranians know that President Trump will stop their reign of terror just like he did in his first four years in the White House."
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Meta later announced that an Iranian hacker group targeted the WhatsApp accounts of people associated with the two administrations.
"This malicious activity originated in Iran and attempted to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the United States and the UK," the Facebook parent said in a statement. "These accounts posed as technical support for AOL, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft."
Last month, days after his campaign accused Tehran of breaching its internal communications, Trump suggested he was open to a rapprochement with the Iranians.
"I'm not looking to be bad to Iran, we're going to be friendly, I hope, with Iran, maybe, but maybe not," he said. "But we're going to be friendly I hope, we're going to be friendly, but they can't have a nuclear weapon."
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